DEDICATED TO EXPOSING DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA AND TO PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - WITH SHARP ANALYSIS AND BLUNT COMMENTARY. NO ADS. NO TIP-JAR. JUST THE TRUTH.
Police in Acapulco say four women and a teenage girl have been found with their throats cut in the Mexican resort city. All appear to have been connected to the same beauty parlor.IT HAPPENED THERE; IT COULD HAPPEN HERE.Guerrero state police say the bodies of two of the women and the 14-year-old girl were found inside the beauty parlor outside the tourism district. They had been stripped of their clothes and their hands and feet were tied.
The other two victims were found separately in other parts of Acapulco — one in an abandoned car and the other on a street behind a church.
Acapulco has seen violent turf battles among at least three drug gangs.
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About China’s high-speed rail edge ….Barack Obama has spent the past two years scolding Americans on our lack of progress on high-speed rail, using China as a yardstick — or more appropriately, a ruler with which to rap our knuckles. Almost exactly two years ago, Obama announced his intention to spend tens of billions of dollars in catching up to China and Europe in subsidizing the rail lines and systems for high-speed transport. “My high-speed rail proposal will lead to innovations that change the way we travel in America,” Obama said in April 2009, saying of China that it “may have more miles of high-speed rail service than any other country just five years from now.”
Or maybe not, as the Washington Post’s Charles Lane reports after his trip to see the project first-hand. The vaunted high-speed rail project pushed by Beijing has collapsed into a morass of embezzlement and failure (via Jonah Goldberg):
For the past eight years, Liu Zhijun was one of the most influential people in China. As minister of railways, Liu ran China’s $300 billion high-speed rail project. U.S., European and Japanese contractors jostled for a piece of the business while foreign journalists gushed over China’s latest high-tech marvel.
Today, Liu Zhijun is ruined, and his high-speed rail project is in trouble. On Feb. 25, he was fired for “severe violations of discipline” — code for embezzling tens of millions of dollars. Seems his ministry has run up $271 billion in debt — roughly five times the level that bankrupted General Motors. But ticket sales can’t cover debt service that will total $27.7 billion in 2011 alone. Safety concerns also are cropping up.
But hey, the trains still run on time, don’t they? Not exactly:
Faced with a financial and public relations disaster, China put the brakes on Liu’s program. On April 13, the government cut bullet-train speeds 30 mph to improve safety, energy efficiency and affordability. The Railway Ministry’s tangled finances are being audited. Construction plans, too, are being reviewed.
Liu’s legacy, in short, is a system that could drain China’s economic resources for years. So much for the grand project that Thomas Friedman of the New York Times likened to a “moon shot” and that President Obama held up as a model for the United States.
Even with substandard materials and shoddy construction, the system faces annual shortfalls of billions of dollars. Now the system runs a lot slower, although the price isn’t likely to decline, and bus service will look better and better to the working class the high-speed rail was supposed to serve. The pricing is why the train services mainly the wealthy and foreigners even with the massive subsidies for its operation.
THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS TWO FREEEEEKIN' MONTHS AGO:
AND WE FIRST POSTED ON OBAMA'S LOVE FOR CHINA IN 2008!Friday, February 18, 2011
NO WONDER OBAMA LOVES HIGH-SPEED RAIL...
NO WONDER OBAMA LOVES HIGH-SPEED RAIL:Railways Ministry, Liu Zhijun built a commercial and political colossus that spanned continents and elevated the lowly train to a national symbol of pride and technological prowess.Liu Zhijun, chief of the Chinese Railways Ministry, was fired on Saturday and is being investigated for “severe violations of discipline.”
His abrupt sacking by the Communist Party is casting that empire in a decidedly different light, raising doubts not only about Mr. Liu’s stewardship and the corruption that dogs ’s vast public-works projects, but also, perhaps, the safety, financial soundness and long-term viability of a rail system that has captured the world’s attention.
Mr. Liu, 58, was fired Saturday and is being investigated by the party’s disciplinary committee for “severe violations of discipline,” a euphemism for corruption. His high government rank — minister-level officials are rarely fired under such a cloud — hints at far deeper dissatisfaction with one of China’s most publicized and sweeping domestic initiatives.
Until last week, Mr. Liu had led China’s program to lace the nation with nearly 8,100 miles of lines and to build more than 11,000 miles of traditional railroad lines. The sheer size and cost of the endeavor — the investment has been estimated at $750 billion, some $395 billion for high-speed rail alone — has led experts to compare it to the transcontinental railroad that opened the American West.
hailed China’s program in his and called for the United States to move quickly on high-speed rail plans that had been repeatedly delayed by budget concerns and political infighting.
REPEAT:
hailed China’s program in his and called for the United States to move quickly on high-speed rail plans that had been repeatedly delayed by budget concerns and political infighting.ONE OF THE PRIMARY REASONS EVERYONE SHOULD SUPPORT SMALL/LIMITED GOVERNMENT IS THAT BIG GOVERNMENT ALWAYS LEADS TO CORRUPTION AND WASTE.
THAT'S WHY BREZHNEV SOCIALISTS LIKE OBAMA AND HIS CRONIES IN THE GOVERNMENT UNIONS LIKE BIG GOVERNMENT.
IT'S THE CORRUPT LEECH-LIKE AXIS IF TAXES AND TO PUT AN END TO IT THE NATION MUST FOLLOW THE LEADS OF GOVERNORS WALKER AND CHRISTIE - AND YES: EVEN CUOMO.
GOVERNMENT UNIONS MUST BE THROTTLED.
AND NOW.
OBAMA ISN'T LEADING; HE SHOULD GET OUT OF THE WAY.
Posted by Reliapundit @ 10:59 AM
AMMAN - Security forces shot dead at least 25 pro-democracy protesters in Syria on Friday, human rights campaigners said.They are really turning into a living hell there.
They were killed in suburbs and towns surrounding Damascus, in the central city of Homs and in the southern town of Izra'a, two established Syrian human rights organizations keeping a tally of civilian deaths told Reuters. Witnesses reported dozens injured in the deadly clashes.
"... Norma Rae for the Temple Emanu-El set."
signaled in 1978 that it was fine to get rich, much of has seemed hell-bent on that goal. But some local governments would like those who succeed not to lord it over others, at least when it comes to paying final respects.As of last month, in the cemeteries of this hilly megalopolis in south-central China, modest burials are in. Fancy tombs are out.
Plots for ashes are limited to 1.5 square meters, about four feet by four feet. Tombstones are supposed to be no higher than 100 centimeters, or 39 inches, although it is not clear that limit will be enforced. Sellers of oversize plots have been warned of severe fines, as much as 300 times the plot’s price.
“Ordinary people who walk by and see these lavish tombs might not be able to keep their emotions in balance,” said Zheng Wenzhong, as he visited the relatively modest resting place of a relative at The Temple of the Lighted Lamp cemetery.
That is apparently exactly what many officials fear. After a quarter of a century in which the gap between rich and poor has steadily widened, the wretched excesses of the affluent are increasingly a Chinese government concern.
China’s , as measured by a standard called the Gini coefficient, is now on a par with some Latin American and African countries, according to the . Justin Yifu Lin, the bank’s chief economist, last year identified the growing disparity as one of China’s biggest economic problems.
Li Shi, an economics professor at Beijing Normal University, said that in 1988 the average income of the top 10 percent of Chinese was about 12 times that of the bottom 10 percent. By 2007, he said, those at the top earned 23 times more.
... Rising prices have cast China’s whole funeral industry in an unflattering light. Mr. Zheng, the Renmin University professor, said local governments were partly to blame for the inflation because they limited competition.
Most cemeteries are directly government-controlled, he said; the rest depend on permits from the government, which owns the land. The state Ministry of Civil Affairs said last year that the government was managing 1,209 cemeteries, 853 funeral management “work units” and about 7,000 workers.
“They control all of it, either by rejecting new projects or approving very, very few of them,” Mr. Zheng said.
On paper, low-cost burials have been national policy since at least 1997, when State Decree 225 ordered cemetery land conserved and “thrifty funeral arrangements” promoted.
BOTTOM-LINE: INCOME DISPARITY IS A SIDE-EFFECT OF GROWTH; THE CHINESE ARE MUCH BETTER OFF WITH INCOME DISPARITY NOW, THEN INCOME EQUALITY PRE-DENG XIAOPING!
In the general election last weekend, the nationalist and populist True Finn Party emerged from political obscurity after largely campaigning on the evils of the European Union and its bailouts of Greece and Ireland. It claimed 39 seats in Finland’s Parliament — almost eight times the number it won in the 2007 election — and it is likely to become a partner in any coalition government. ...
Finland is not alone. Anti-European Union and anti- parties have been on the rise in Sweden, Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands in the past year, and more may follow. It is a worrisome trend for supporters of the union, ...
Mr. Soini [THE HEAD OF THE TRUE FINN PARTY WHICH WON THE MOST SEATS INTHE ELECTION] — who is 48 and has been active in politics since he was 17 — repeatedly lashed out at the European Union. (He is fond of calling it “the heart of darkness.”) A true democracy, he has said, is “only possible in individual states.”He has also sold himself as a man of the people who is attuned to the needs of the poor and working class at a time when the distance between rich and poor is growing and Finland, like many other European countries, is considering austerity measures.
“Soini talks ordinary language with ordinary words,” said Ville Pernaa, the director of the Center for Parliamentary Studies at the University of Turku in Finland. “He told the voters that they were wasting money paying for other people’s debts. Why should they pay for that when we need more doctors in the small towns of Finland?”
Perttu Pouttu, a retired worker for a Helsinki energy company who meets friends in the Hakaniemi Market Square most mornings, said he had voted for the True Finns because Mr. Soini’s arguments made sense to him.
“Of course the bailouts raise questions,” he said. “Will we get that money back? Where are the banks? This is their problem.”
At the same time, Mr. Pouttu said he was worried that Finland had admitted too many refugees. “It does not touch me personally,” he said. “But it bugs me that by law we have to give them apartments. When I retired, no one gave me an apartment.”
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
An Iranian website has reported that a large coup by Revolutionary Guards commanders in Iran has been thwarted. Reza Kahlili writes:Read the rest here: http://www.worldthreats.com/?p=7855
Reports from inside Iran indicate that dozens of Revolutionary Guard commanders belonging to its Ground Forces have been arrested and charged with plotting a coup.
Based on the same reports, last night 37 Guards’ commanders were arrested and transferred to the Gohardasht prison to be transferred today to Prison 66, which is run by the Guards. Those arrested had plans to take over 130 key institutions in Tehran.
The recent conflicts within the Ministry of Intelligence & Security reportedly have resulted from the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit’s desire to control the Ministry.
James Cooper, left, and James T. Kouzaris, Britons who were vacationing in Sarasota, Fla., were fatally shot on Saturday.
Police officials are investigating how the young men, James Cooper, 25, and James T. Kouzaris, 24, got from the bar in downtown Sarasota to the public housing project, where they died on a narrow, one-way street. The police found the men after receiving a 911 call.
DAILY MAIL:Police investigators were last night trying to piece together how the two university friends were murdered in a gang-ridden neighbourhood in the city of Sarasota.
U.S. officers were said to be mystified that the two middle-class visitors were in the Newton district.
[KEY GRAF:]
This desperate poverty and squalor [ SEE PHOTO ABOVE WHICH ACCOMPANIED THE DAILY MAIL ARTICLE] has served as the breeding ground for serious, often lethal crime from young men who feel they have nothing to lose, in a society which has given them nothing. And it is precisely this sense of desperation which makes these neighbourhoods so dangerous for those outsiders unfortunate or foolish enough to enter them.
AUSTER: The truth about the "desperate poverty and squalor" that putatively caused the murder of two young Englishmen in Florida
In the entry, "NYT to the rescue, lessens significance of murder of Englishmen in Sarasota," Dean Ericson quoted a story in the Daily Mail that blames black violence on the terrible poverty and other deprivations suffered by blacks in America as a result of the selfishness or cruelty of the white majority. Below, James P. points out how the Mail hilariously undercuts its own claim.#1 - LIBERALS ARE WRONG; Poverty doesn't cause crime - if it did then there'd be nothing but criminals in poor neiughborhoods and pooor nations and thata's simply npt the case; criminals are a distinct minority within the poor income brackets - and there are plenty of middle-class and rich crooks.James P. writes:
The Daily Mail says:
Away from the all the luxury and glamour of the attractions and hotels, a gun-toting, drug-fuelled menace awaits where people live in abject deprivation on a scale unimaginable in Britain, with our ge. Nerous welfare state and infrastructure of public services. This desperate poverty and squalor has served as the breeding ground for serious, often lethal crime from young men who feel they have nothing to lose, in a society which has given them nothing. And it is precisely this sense of desperation which makes these neighbourhoods so dangerous for those outsiders unfortunate or foolish enough to enter them.This quote is quite hilarious in view of the picture the Mail posted of the street where the Englishmen were murdered: [SEE ABOVE; AND USE THE LINK TO READ AUSTER'S ANALYSIS OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND ITS VEHICLES.]
Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, New York Republican Rep. Peter T. King is demanding answers from Attorney General Eric Holder, calling on Holder to explain to why the Justice Department decided not to prosecute the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) in a Hamas terror finance case.Better still, why don't they organize another hearing in Congress and call in Holder to testify? That could make for a very challenging discussion.
In a letter to Holder, King questions the credibility of Justice Department for deciding not to prosecute the aforementioned actors in United States v. Holy Land Foundation.
“I have been reliably informed that the decision not to seek indictments of the Council on American Islamic Relations (“CAIR”) and its co-founder Omar Ahmad, the Islamic Society of North America (“ISNA”), and the North American Islamic Trust (“NAIT”), was usurped by high-ranking officials at Department of Justice headquarters over the vehement and stated objections of special agents and supervisors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas, who had investigated and successfully prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation case,” King wrote. “Their opposition to this decision raises serious doubt that the decision not to prosecute was a valid exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”
King requests that Holder respond to his questions by April 25th, including the reason Justice did not pursue cases against the three groups and Omar Ahmad (co-founder of CAIR and former head of a Muslim Brotherhood branch); the person behind the decision to drop the case and if the decision involved anybody from the executive branch; and how will concerns about these groups funding terrorists be handled in the future.
JEFFERSON CITY • A bill prohibiting state courts from using or recognizing Sharia law passed the Missouri House Wednesday on a 102-51 vote.This is very good.
The legislation, which was sponsored by state Rep. Paul Curtman, R-Pacific, bans Missouri courts from utilizing foreign law or legal code in any ruling. Although it never specifically mentions the words “Sharia” or “Islam," Wednesday’s debate focused almost exclusively on Sharia law, which is the religious law of Islam.
“This bill is not all about Sharia Law,” Curtman said. "It’s Sharia Law, French law, Dutch law or anything else.”
Since the beginning of 2009, numerous states have considered proposals to ban Sharia. During last year's elections, Oklahoma voters passed a referendum banning state courts from considering international or Islamic law. However, it was later blocked by a federal judge who said that the law was unconstitutional.
Legislation similar to Curtman’s was introduced in the Missouri Senate by Republican Brian Nieves but has yet to gain traction. The House bill picked up momentum earlier this session when House Speaker Steve Tilley threw his support behind it, saying “the laws of this country should trump any other laws regarding the citizens of our country within our borders."
We need to treat Pakistan - and Turkey - as enemies, not allies.The US military's top officer, Adm Mike Mullen, has accused Pakistan's spy agency of having links with militants targeting troops in Afghanistan.
He said Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had a "long-standing relationship" with a militant group run by Afghan insurgent Jalaluddin Haqqani.
The comments came as he held talks in Islamabad on Wednesday. Pakistani officials are also in the US for talks.
Pakistan routinely rejects charges of collusion with militants.
The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that US officials have in the past spoken anonymously or in circumspect terms about associations between the Pakistani establishment and insurgents.
But that with this blunt statement Adm Mullen has for the first time claimed a clear link between the two, our correspondent says.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Thursday upheld the acquittal of five of the six men accused in the gang rape of Mukhtar Mai, the resilient woman who had gained international recognition and emerged as a symbol of the voiceless and oppressed women in the country.
A three-member bench of the Supreme Court, led by Justice Shakirullah Jan, upheld a decision by the Lahore High Court and acquitted five of the accused, citing lack of evidence. The sixth is to complete a life sentence. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was not part of the bench.
Ms. Mukhtar was gang-raped in 2002 on the orders of the village council in Meerwala, a dusty farming village in the backwaters of Punjab Province. The case jolted the country and ignited international outrage.
The rape was a punishment for her younger brother’s alleged illicit relations with a woman from a rival tribe, the Mastoi. Later police investigations revealed that the boy had been molested by three Mastoi tribesmen, and that the accusation against him had been a cover-up.
Ms. Mukhtar became a cause célèbre among human rights activists after she spoke out against the crime and her ensuing legal struggle became a source of strength and inspiration for rape victims. She also set up two schools for boys and girls in her village.
“I am deeply upset by the decision of the Supreme Court,” she said by telephone from Meerwala. “Now I don’t have confidence in any court. But the court of God is bigger than any worldly court.”
Ms. Mukhtar also expressed concern for her safety. “The Supreme Court will be responsible if something happens to me or my family,” she said.
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Terror suspects arrested Thursday led police to a 150-kilogram (330-pound) bomb buried beneath a gas pipeline near a church just outside Indonesia’s capital, officials said.
Senior security minister Djoko Suyanto said he believed Islamic militants had been plotting an attack ahead of Easter celebrations, and the U.S. embassy urged Americans to be vigilant.
“The army and police are under high alert,” he told reporters, adding that troops would be deployed at churches and other strategic locations. “We want to guarantee safety.”
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has been battling extremists since 2002 when al-Qaida-linked militants attacked two nightclubs on Bali island, killing 202 people, many of them foreign tourists.
There have been several attacks since then targeting glitzy hotels, restaurants and an embassy, killing another 60. Hundreds of suspects have been arrested, convicted and thrown in jail.
In recent months, small bands of militants hoping to turn the secular nation of 237 million into an Islamic state have shifted their focus to local “enemies.”
They’ve gone after police, members of a minority Islamic sect deemed “deviant,” Christians and moderate Muslim leaders.
National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo said the 19 suspects were arrested Thursday, including six accused in a series of mail bombs sent last month to liberal Muslim activists and a former anti-terror chief.
Four people were wounded in the parcel bombings, none seriously.
The arrested men eventually led police to the gas pipeline 100 meters (yards) from a Catholic church large enough to hold 3,000 people in Serpong, where they found the massive, high explosive bomb.
Suyanto said he believed the militants had been planning to disrupt Good Friday celebrations.
The U.S. embassy in Jakarta issued a statement urging Americans to be especially cautious over the weekend and to stay clear of demonstrations.
“Even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence,” it said.
Ninety percent of Indonesians are Muslim, though most practice a moderate form of the faith and abhor violence. A small, extremist fringe has become more vocal, and violent, in recent years.
2 arrested on suspicion of setting fire to shul in Greece
MARCY MOORE (ABOVE - NOTICE HER BREASTS)
THE UNCENSORED PHOTO I ARGUE IS DUNHAM (ABOVE) - THE BREASTS DON'T LOOK LIKE MARCY MOORE'S TO ME.
A DETAIL FROM THE NUDE PHOTO PURPORTEDLY OF STANLEY ANN NAKED (ABOVE)
KNOWN TO BE A PHOTO OF DUNHAM (ABOVE) - I THINK THE LOOK MORE LIKE EACH OTHER THAN THE FACE ON THE KNOWN MARCY MOORE PHOTO.
We have to use these damn twisty light bulbs to save the planet, right? Well, what if they aren’t very good for us?
Their report advises that the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someone’s head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on.
Peter Braun, who carried out the tests at the Berlin’s Alab Laboratory, said: “For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment.”
The bulbs are already widely used in the UK following EU direction to phase out traditional incandescent lighting by the end of this year.
But the German scientists claimed that several carcinogenic chemicals and toxins were released when the environmentally-friendly compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were switched on, including phenol, naphthalene and styrene.
THERE IS NOTHING - NOT A SINGLE PART OF THE LEFTIST AGENDA THAT IS GOOD, RIGHT OR TRUE.
Giyus.org: 2011 has been a stormy year across the Middle East – How do these revolutions and changes impact Israel?What led to the rise of the AKP, one could observe, was the secular Turkish community's underestimation of their particular influence. Now, the damage has been done and train's left the station on a collision course.
Minister Begin: I'll say something that everyone knows which is that is that no one knows. No one knows where things are headed, people guess and estimate, research institutions guestimate, intelligence services have their own assessments, but no one really knows. The Egyptian leadership didn't know a week before the revolution happened, and the same goes for the Tunisia leadership. It's all in an embryonic stage and I, according to my scientific background, am trying to guess as little as I can. So what I usually do in situation like this is put some constraints on my imagination. The way I proposed to do that is through observation of 3 democracies in the Middle East, since Democracy is what we're told these events lead to.
I start with Turkey, a long term democracy, even an improved version of democracy compared to Israel since they have a constitution. So Turkey has a constitution, an independent judicial system, elections that take place on time and are to a large degree orderly and transparent, a parliament, coalition and opposition, coalition crises from time to time,. So, it's a fine democracy. Turkey is also a member of NATO. But now we have to take into account that in the year 2002, a new government was elected. The AKP party ascended to the throne and this Islamist government voluntarily elected to turn their ambitions east wards towards Iran under Ahmadinejad instead of Europe and the European democracies, despite the fact that Turkey is a NATO member. They have aligned themselves publicly with the new bloc comprising Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. They have been supportive of all these bodies. Let's remember that AKP have their roots in the Muslim Brotherhood in Lebanon in the 20s of the last Century. These are the same roots; they are off shoots of the same plant. This will explain to you why the current Turkish government so readily supports Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which could not hold their conventions openly in Egypt under Mubarak, held them freely in Turkey for years. Finally, Turkey's alignment with Ahmadinejad, whose ambitions to eradicate Israel are well known, is repulsive. That's Turkey, a democracy – how far does it contribute to peace and stability in the Middle East today?
For much of the past decade, the Iranian government has tolerated what it considers a particularly depraved and un-Islamic vice: the keeping of pet dogs.You should be glad you don't live in that horrid country, or your child's pet dog - and very possibly cat - could be decreed haram. And don't be surprised if what they're planning for now will result in the animal being not only confiscated, but also exterminated. Without even a word from western animal rights groups, I'm guessing, sadly enough.
During periodic crackdowns, police have confiscated dogs from their owners right off the street; and state media has lectured Iranians on the diseases spread by canines. The cleric Gholamreza Hassani, from the city of Urmia, has been satirized for his sermons railing against "short-legged" and "holdable" dogs. But as with the policing of many other practices (like imbibing alcoholic drinks) that are deemed impure by the mullahs but perfectly fine to many Iranians, the state has eventually relaxed and let dog lovers be. (See the top 10 animal stories of 2010.)
Those days of tacit acceptance may soon be over, however. Lawmakers in Tehran have recently proposed a bill in parliament that would criminalize dog ownership, formally enshrining its punishment within the country's Islamic penal code. The bill warns that that in addition to posing public health hazards, the popularity of dog ownership "also poses a cultural problem, a blind imitation of the vulgar culture of the West." The proposed legislation for the first time outlines specific punishments for "the walking and keeping" of "impure and dangerous animals," a definition that could feasibly include cats but for the time being seems targeted at dogs. The law would see the offending animal confiscated, the leveling of a $100-to-$500 fine on the owner, but leaves the fate of confiscated dogs uncertain. "Considering the several thousand dogs [that are kept] in Tehran alone, the problem arises as to what is going to happen to these animals," Hooman Malekpour, a veterinarian in Tehran, said to the BBC's Persian service. If passed, the law would ultimately energize police and volunteer militias to enforce the ban systematically.
Today's Turkey is a cautionary tale for the West. But Western leaders are loath to consider its lessons.Interestingly enough, notice how some of the victims of this sharia process in Turkey have been leftists, yet at the same time, they and the military made serious mistakes of acting against each other. But does the left in western countries care? Apparently not.
Ever since Turkey's Islamist Justice and Peace AKP party under Recip Tayip Erdogan won the November 2002 elections, Western officials have upheld the AKP, Erdogan and his colleagues as proof that political Islam is consonant with democratic values. During Erdogan's June 2005 visit to the White House for instance, then president George W. Bush praised Turkish democracy as "an important example for the people in the broader Middle East."
Unfortunately, nine years into the AKP's "democratic" regime it is clear that Erdogan and his colleagues' embrace of the language and tools of democracy was a mile wide and an inch thick. They used democracy to gain power. Now that they have power, they are systematically destroying freedom in their country.
Turkey ranks 138th in the international media freedom group Reporters Sans Frontiers country index on press freedom. 68 journalists are languishing in Turkish jails for the crime of doing their job. The most recent round-up of reporters occurred in early March. And it is demonstrative of Turkey's Islamist leaders' exploitation of democratic freedoms in the service of their tyrannical ends.
As Der Spiegel reported last week, veteran journalists Ahmet Sik from the far left Radikal newspaper and Nedim Sener from the highbrow Milliyet journal were among those rounded up. As radical leftists, both men oppose the AKP's Islamist politics. But they shared its interest in weakening the Turkish military.
The Left opposed the military's constitutional role as the overseer of Turkish democracy because the military used that role to persecute leftists. The AKP party opposed the military's power because it blocked the party's path to Islamizing Turkish society and politics. When the AKP turned its guns on the military it used leftist journalists to support its actions.
This collusion came to a head in 2007. In a bid to destroy the legitimacy of the military, the AKP regime has engaged in unprecedented levels of wiretapping of the communications of senior serving and retired generals.
This wiretapping operation preceded the exposure in 2007 of the so-called Ergenekon conspiracy in which senior military commanders, journalists, television personalities, entertainers and businesspeople have been implicated in an alleged attempt to topple the AKP government. As part of the Ergenekon investigation, over the past four years, hundreds of non-Islamist leaders from generals to journalists have been arrested and held without trial.
China's unrelenting real estate boom has driven housing prices up by 140 percent nationwide since 2007, and by as much as 800 percent in Beijing over the past eight years. The soaring prices have even affected relationships -- only men who can afford nice apartments are considered marriage material.With typical shortsightedness, the NYT article is all aghast at the short-term problem of inflation vs. the long-term Chinese demographic suicide which is the result of their one-child policy.
The Chinese government, concerned about a housing bubble, recently issued new measures to curb the growth in housing prices. On Thursday, Moody's Investors Service downgraded China's property sector to "negative" from "stable," warning that the government's measures may dampen demand.
